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The Danger Of Tradition In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

637 Words3 Pages

Zoe Bellanca
Professor Minnock
English V01B
28 July 2023
The Danger of Tradition In a world where change is unavoidable, people cling to the constant. This often means they will hold onto the unvarying without considering why. When humans avoid inspecting their traditions, it leaves them with outdated, dangerous practices. This human condition is the subject of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. Jackson’s short story takes place in a small modern town on the day of their most important annual tradition. The tradition, known as the lottery, consists of drawing slips of paper at random to determine a victim. Then, the victim is stoned to death. Through Jackson’s story, she investigates the dangers of blind rituals, the reasons for tradition, and the chance of punishment. …show more content…

Summers, who runs the lottery, carrying a black box into the town square. This box is not the original box used for the lottery, however, it is older than any citizen of the town. Due to its age, the box is in poor condition and Mr. Summers wants to replace it. Regardless, the citizens refuse to switch the box out because it is part of the sacred tradition. This refusal to change expresses how connected to the lottery the town is and how unwilling to improve it they are. Furthermore, the lack of enhancement to the lottery box shows how tradition doesn’t always benefit them. They could get a better box, but they choose to stick with their shabby box strictly because of tradition. Moreover, the connection to the unoriginal box, suggests that the townspeople don’t understand the history of the lottery. They seem to be unaware that this box is not the first and even why the lottery was created. The tradition may have been created for any number of reasons, however, the citizens ignore the possibilities and continue the tradition. This unwillingness to scrutinize the lottery results in a towns person's brutal murder every year for no apparent reason other than

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